Tag Archives: gaming

I haven’t been writing this blog that long, and what started out as one particular theme merged into another and now I have a mixed blog. It also feels somewhat better to write the more you get into it, and I like that you can analyse a particular topic or event in real time.

That being said, it’s almost very easy to evolve as a blogger if you allow yourself the freedom and creativity to do so. When I first started blogging I really had so much to say, but didn’t really know where to start. The thing is, blogging can be endless because our lives are so different. Initially I thought, my days are boring, I’ll have nothing to say. Then I moved from starting a blog about my WoW character which I found difficult to really get into without being like every other WoW blog out there, to moving into something where I can fragment and compartmentalise different situations I’m involved in.

Today for example, I had a really busy day at work, but what stood out was the actions of two people I work with and how much it infuriated me. I was sure I wanted to come home and rant all about it, but when that time came, I was partially over it, and thinking much more rationally.

I then thought about ranting about my stupid fire and why it took me 5 attempts to get it going and how I wished it was summer.

Further to that, I thought about adding my fail safe recipe for the most succulent and crunchy pork belly, but decided against it.

So then I got to thinking about what it is we do as bloggers and how we evolve. Many of my guildmates have revamped and revised their blogs to include other games they play and their general experiences in game. I also noticed more and more that I started to include things that were important to me, like food and health, or video clips that made me laugh.

It also gave me an avenue to talk about 50….oh 50; how you have altered my world!

So in saying that, I’d like to make a list of ways that YOU can evolve as a blogger:

Keep a notebook in your bag so that you are able to make notes of things you’d like to discuss when yo are out and about and think of a brilliant idea. Use OneNote to save clippings and news sites in an orderly way, collect images, quotes etc.

Develop an opinion about something that means something to you, and express it.

Be creative! Don’t limit your blogging to something everyone has done or is doing. The way to make your blog posts and blog stand out is by being different. Link your Pinterest or Twitter, so that people can follow you and you have another avenue of expression.

Take pictures of things while out and about, and write about them.

Start a project, or short writing series. (This can include image projects too)

Write properly, proof read, and don’t babble.

Review things

Set an achievable goal

Analyse things, like quotes, art, pictures, words, ideas or philosophies. You’ll be amazed at how your interpretation can differ from someone else’s.

So whilst I do advocate that we should all be passionate about something, and use it to express ourselves creatively or otherwise, it is important to remember that as life is fluid and transparent, so is blogging. And being able to keep up with the world around you can provide excellent sources of information and general knowledge that translates into awesome ways to blog!

I love writing. I’ve always loved writing, and whilst unpacking this last week I stumbled across my primary school report cards. All of them detailed how creative my stories were and how sometimes I would trail off, trying to get as much fine detail as possible into what I was trying to say.

When I got to uni stage however, my writing changed. I now find it difficult to write creatively, simply because in the back of my mind I am always thinking of how I will reference that piece of work, or making sure I haven’t plagiarised. Writing at university level requires analysis and critical commentary, something I can do with my eyes closed.

But that leaves me in a bind. Now that I have a blog and am writing somewhat creatively, I find I can never find something to write about! Which is appalling really, because there is so much out there that needs to be heard. But where it becomes complicated is working out what your view is of the world, and do you want to be serious or not. I could write endlessly on the politics of the world, but then I would feel as if I was constantly writing papers for uni, and I kind of want to get away from that. I don’t want to write about work, well, because I can’t really. I also don’t want to write exclusively about WoW, because I don’t do WoW on that level. I can’t give someone a guide on warlocks and spell coefficients and dps output numbers and haste ticks. I’m not mathematical like that.

I also don’t want to be one of those whinging so-and-so’s always writing negative posts complaining about how much injustice or pain or suffering is out there in the world. There are alot of things around us worth complaining about, but there is also a lot of beauty and wonderfullness that isn’t acknowledged as much as it should. I don’t want to become some paranoid conspiracy theorist (I am slightly paranoid, but I blame work for that!) that tries to find any loophole or discrepency and then attempts to make something out of it. It isn’t my style.

So, whilst I’ve established to myself that this will now be a mixed blog, it has the opportunity to be about anything. It might have recipes I like, hints and tips I find useful, WoW related, photography related (although I am on Tumblr for that) or just a random rant at a moment I need to vent.

That being said, I was googling some blog post ideas and saw an idea someone had on their post for ideas for blog posts. I thought about a day in the life of… and realised my days are generally not something that people may find terribly exciting. I get up, feed the chooks and get eggs, get ready for work, go to work, come home, get the firewood, feed the dogs, check the chooks, make dinner, play WoW or watch some T.V, shower, go to bed….

Not very thrilling, is it?

So instead of a day in the life of me, I am going to write a series on a day in the life of my WoW toons. Call me nerdy, it’s ok. Fellow WoW players understand!

Considering that Mists is not far off, and I have about two handfuls of 85’s, it would be an interesting way to get the creative juices flowing with something generally easy to write about. Hopefully, the mini series gets some legs and goes for an internet wander of sorts. It would be nice to have some constructive feedback!

So stay glued to your monitors, because Episode 1 is just around the……..

As you may well know I recently posted about ceasing the OpLock project. As a result of this change, I have merged my WoW blog and my general blog so that I am not trying to maintain a million blogs. Plus, this way I have the flexibility of having WoW related posts and general ramblings.

Any suggestions, comments or constructive criticism is much appreciated!

I started this blog because I was going to start a project. The project was going to be to make a lock of ever kind available on WoW and level it to max cap.

To be honest, the idea had a lot of steam in the beginning and I really was keen on the project. But in the meantime, shit happened. We moved house, bought a house, finished uni etc etc. All these other RL events stopped me not only blogging, but playing WoW.

Further to that, at this point in the xpac I got tired. Not only did I get tired, but my whole guild got tired, and other games came out. The only reason I am currently playing WoW as often as I am is that I have a friend who is really into raiding etc who has just come back to the game, and having that social aspect in game makes it fun again. Until such time as MoP is released, and if it wasn’t for my friend, I probably would’ve been on a bit of WoW hiatus.

So, that being said, Operation Lock in its original context is going to be stopped. Firstly, I don’t have the energy or willpower to level a lock of every kind. I can’t be bothered. Secondly, I already have a bunch of 85s that will require levelling when MoP comes out, so that if timed right should keep me going considerably until this point again in the next xpac (assuming I will still be playing WoW, which I think I will). Thirdly, I am not very good at getting too technical about WoW. I love my lock, she was my first, my one and only and she will ALWAYS be my main. But I don’t have the time to be writing really extravagant technical posts about warlockery in MoP or now. It just doesn’t interest me. I enjoy playing, I enjoy knowing how to play my class and playing it well. The rest, well, that’s what other people are for. Give me a paper to write on counter terrorism though, and I can write for days!

So all this other technical BS I initially prepared for on the blog will be removed. I will still keep this blog to write about my general WoW experiences, but to continue with the project, that will be a no.

It has been a long while since I blogged. It sucks, because I currently have 3 blog projects that I am running and none seem to be progressing too far!

Blame it on the games…

I recently started a blog called Operation Warlock, with the intent of blogging about my mini project.The project is simple, level one of every kind of Warlock in WoW. The blog has started off well, but I haven’t been leveling my first alt as much as I should be. In fact, she probably could have been 85 for a long time by now, but I just seem to get distracted and end up doing other things.

Work has also been pretty insane, but work always is pretty insane. I’ve been training someone up in the job I am assigned too, but have been requested back to the job I want, and have been doing for a long time. Fingers crossed I actually get transferred back into this job, cos I am perfect for it.

Apart from that a lot else is happening on the home front. Between last week and now a mini explosion has erupted. OH and I saw a broker to see how we would progress in terms of getting some credit for a house, and with all else that is happening with the rental, and being given a notice to vacate on Friday, I am not only upset, but disillusioned at Real Estate professionals and their ability to fuck people around. Seriously selfish bunch of people, and I cannot wait to make a formal complaint about this company.

Ideally, I would love to be able to blog on all three, but it can be time consuming and a bit of a full-time project. And currently, I have too much on. But when don’t I?!

Things are moving fast at the moment, and fingers crossed it all works out.

We all have one, and we all definitely know one. Most of our guilds have them too, and quite often we use their services for mobility within Azeroth.

That’s right.

Mages. Evil mage spies, pesky mages, bluey blue blue blues with their little blue pew pews, keepers of the Dalaran Sanctuary…Mages. Some like to think that their is an overarching secret battle occurring between Mages and Warlocks, and some of the humorous banter I’ve read between those on either side has been frankly very riveting. But I don’t think there is currently any cause for concern fellow warlocks.

You see, although we share the same dps style, with both mages and locks being excellent caster dps roles, we fundamentally have very different roles, play styles and utilities. I find that which I miss on my warlock is on my mage, and vice versa.

To be brutally honest I originally only made a mage because my husband has one and we wanted to be able to have one on both accounts to teleport our toons to places. I don’t play my mage as often as I should, and sometimes I find it boring. I tried PvP with it, and although it was fun, I was still inherently squishy, and noobish. But I like mages. They are versatile and have some great tricks in that little magic hat of theirs.

My point of the day, after all that fluffing about, reminds me of a discussion I had with this fellow mage of mine regarding toons. He was always of the opinion that to complete your arsenal of wow toons you really only need one tank, one healer, and one dps. It took me a really long time to explain that fundamentally, although on the surface many toons appear to have relatively similar attributes, particularly from low level perspectives, they are all significantly different. He has never had a warlock., so doesn’t understand dot mechanics, multi-dotting, or the advantage of being able to move and cast (not often, but sometimes), particularly with the power of procs. He also didn’t understand how it used to be with timing rotations correctly for maximum dps and how that was important. (ticking off?!) He plays an arcane mage to this day, not a lot required for maximum burst dps output. And although mages have a fire spec option which allows them to have a more ‘warlocky’ feel of play with dots and such, he has never played it. Even with the changes to warlock specs in patches following Cataclysm, warlocks didn’t focus solely on rotations; in fact, I do recall a post from Blizzard making this change for all toons, so that people weren’t stuck in rotation-land spamming the same thing over and over.

The thing is, yes you may have two casters, but they are completely different in their play style and abilities.

WRONG! Yes, it is wrong to assume that mages and warlocks are the same. We even found, this fellow mage and I, that although we were both cloth wearers, with similar HP and mana pools, he always died before I died. To this day we don’t know why, but maybe that is something a fellow mage may be able to enlighten me on.

Of late, because this post has been sitting in my drafts folder for eons, I have found that PvPing on my mage has been fantastic. More than fantastic, superior! I decided I would have a bit of fun just PvPing for the sake of it the other day, and I was doing immensely well…in PvE gear…and arcane spec….(ssshhhh….don’t tell Pixie Lock)…maybe I will find a use for the mage after all.

But back to it. Warlocks can be incredibly tricky to play…as are all classes. It’s not so simple just to power level one and expect to learn all the tricks of the trade shortly thereafter. Without getting too technical, warlockery used to be enshrouded in mechanics, dots ticking over, timing, and huge amounts of spell power. Much has changed since those pre Cata days, so much so that in fact whilst it is still important to maintain a rotation, it is super important to understand why you are running that rotation and what purpose it serves. I find that the demo spec these days has little in terms of dots, and dots don’t feel as effective as burst damage does in this spec. I also see many affliction pve locks not running with Curse of Elements, but some that do. This irritates me somewhat, but I may leave that for another post.

Back in the day, it used to be really important to clip your dots as a lock. Meaning, that just as the last second approached of the dot coming off the target, you had to recast it. Not many people got it right, and things such as lag and encounter would affect that clip. Since the launch of Cata though, Blizzard dropped the notion of ‘clipping’ dots and instead you’ll find that alot of text on the world wide web of warlockery post Cata doesn’t enforce this once tricky rule. I in fact, am in the habit of recasting just after it goes off, and this has not affected my dps at all.

Where locks differ, fundamentally, is in the ability to be mobile whilst dotting, and this can be great for starting off your dps run when commencing a boss fight. Dotting works well on mobs too, with a pet out (or without, but much better with), a warlock is able to dot and tab and dot and tab and dot and tab until finally you make it back to your first target and see your imp has been burning it up! It works well when attacking mobs that do an aoe ability, such as a stun or aoe fire/frost/nature whatever damage, because you can keep moving around and out of it while still doing damage to it. Warlocks will never do the burst damage that mages do, because warlocks are not that type of caster class. Even playing as a frost mage provides with a lot of burst and utility damage as opposed to dotting. If looking at classes that would be similar, only a shadow priest and potentially a fire mage have the ability to dot like a warlock does, but as a whole, the warlock is the only class where dots remain the primary point of the class, on all specs. Dotting is not just a play style or mechanic, but a finely tuned art that only the uberest of locks can master.

Once I get the spells and abilities page up though, I will link and explain a little more on some of these mechanics and maybe even how they’ve changed throughout their WoW life.